“You like making these movies? Letting him take pictures of you?” His voice was low and angry.
I didn’t answer. All I could do was look down and let the tears fall, spilling against my shirt. I knew about the video. I knew Jase watched it...a lot. It never made me feel dirty or awkward. But, with Mr. Delaney standing over me, it was the first time I felt bad or disgusted about it. His father just made it filthy when all it ever was before was innocent and beautiful.
Grabbing my face, he yanked it back up to look at him. “I asked you a question. You’re supposed to answer me when I do that,” he growled, nostrils flaring.
“N…no…” I stuttered, trying to slide my body away from his, but he just gripped my face harder with his hand. What was I supposed to say to him to make him understand how much I loved Jase? It was just me in a bathing suit; I never took it off! It wasn’t the start of some seductive striptease. That video was innocent. Why was he trying to make me feel guilty—and dirty?
“You’re a liar,” he spit out, pushing his body up against me, slamming me hard into the edge of Jase’s desk. He was so close to me, bending over me, that the heat from his putrid breath was gagging me. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, but the smell of rotting alcohol and stale cigarettes seeped into my skin. I shivered from sheer disgust.
I tried to push against his chest with both of my hands, but he didn’t budge. His hands dropped from my face and gripped both of my wrists so tightly I thought my bones would break. Tears blurred my vision as I looked up at him, and when my eyes fixed on his, I knew I was in trouble. My mind started freaking out, raw panic had my chest heaving violently, and my heart was hammering so hard I felt it in my throat.
His body was locked against mine; my hands were trapped in his. Not one damn part of my body would work to try to get myself away. In my head, I was this brave fighter, twisting and clawing my way to freedom, tearing his face off in my defense. But in reality, my body wouldn’t move—couldn’t move.
With one hand, he yanked the mouse cord from the computer and I started struggling to get free, thinking that he couldn’t hold me with just one hand. But I was wrong. I dropped my body to the floor, trying to make myself heavy as he wrapped my wrists together with the cord.
He pulled me up and dragged me across the rug. My knees scraped and stung as I tried to pull back and escape from his grip. I screamed until my throat burned like fire, and his hands came up, muffling my mouth to silence me. “Shut up, Charlotte! You’re going to wake my wife,” My body shook violently from my sobs.
He threw me on Jase’s bed and I tried desperately to kick out my legs, but Mr. Delaney just straddled them, pressing all of his weight on me, sinking me deep into the mattress. Yanking my hands above my head, he looped the mouse cord against the metal frame of the bed. He quickly yanked my yoga pants down, and I kicked at him violently when one of my legs broke free. Slamming his fist into my inner thigh, I cried out as the pain overwhelmed me.I couldn’t move. Laughing, he tied one of my feet to the end of the bedpost with my own fucking pants and sat heavily on the other leg that was throbbing with pain.
Pulling up my shirt, he yanked down the cups of my bra, and sat over me, staring at my naked breasts. Then, his hands were on them, greedily touching what wasn’t his to touch, and I cried out a loud whimper.
“Shut your fucking mouth!” he yelled, smacking one of his hands hard against the side of my head. He continued squeezing and touching my breasts. His harsh touches made me want to curl into a fetal position and disappear. Melt away and crumble into dust—blow away and evaporate into the wind.
His eyes traveled down my trembling body to my panties, and he licked his disgusting lips. “You’re going to enjoy this, Charlotte. Just relax, okay?” he murmured, trailing his fingers hard against the skin of my belly and down over the cotton material of my underwear. Finding that special bump, he circled his thumb over it and brought his mouth down over my nipples and pulled at them with his lips.
My body started shaking in sheer horror when his lips and fingers started making things happen inside my body. This was a contradiction of what was happening to me. My head did not want his touches; my brain was screaming, “No!” But, the cotton material of my panties were slowly becoming damp from this man knowing exactly where to touch me, how to touch me. “Please, stop. Please. Please, stop,” I cried.
Bloodshot eyes looked into mine. His mouth traveled down, meeting his fingers. Watching me, he pulled my panties to the side and took a taste of what he wasdoingto me.
I closed my eyes tightly and let my head fall to the side so I couldn’t see him anymore. With the cord biting into my wrists, the resolve and fight drained out of me. I closed in on myself. It was bad enough I had to feel everything he was doing to me; I didn’t want to freaking watch it too. He spread me wide and ran his tongue along me, sucking and nipping at my flesh.
Hearing him pulling his zipper down, a new wave of terror shot through me. Through my tears, I watched as he held himself in his hands and rubbed his head around my opening.
“Please don’t,” I sobbed, trying to hip thrust him off me.
And then the weight of him pressed heavily against my chest, and an intense burn ripped up from between my legs as he thrust into me with long hard strokes. He buried his face in my neck and whispered into my ear. “You like this, don’t you?”
“No,” I sobbed through clenched teeth. My bound hands tightened into hard fists, and I struggled violently to pull them free. His weight was so heavy against my stomach and chest, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I closed my eyes tighter to the monster above me—a real-life breathing, panting, moaning, grunting, disgusting monster that was hovering above me, slamming itself inside me, over and over again. My mind took me to a safe place, and I was four years old again, sitting in my tree house for the first time ever, staring in awe and wonder at the castle in a tree that my father built for me. I remembered pretending to be Rapunzel, locked away in her tower, waiting for someone to rescue me. It was always Joey who pretended to be my prince, as long as he got to use his plastic sword or his Ninja Turtle nun-chucks; he always came to rescue me. Fuck those perfect,untouchedDisney princesses and all their bullshit happily-ever-afters. To hell with those piece-of-shit useless princes, who never come to get you and just end up dead.
Reality was a cold, hard bitch, slapping my face. Mr. Delaney’s laughter echoed through my happy place, his dirty words, his vile voice, making my safe imagination crumble into a harsh reality before my eyes. “Yes, you like this, baby girl, you like when I fuck you,” he panted.
“No. I. Don’t.”
His raspy laugh puffed heat against my neck, “You’re fucking lying to me again. This feels so good for you, doesn’t it? I’m going to fuck you until you come so hard that you’ll want to come back here tomorrow.” Leaning his head back, he yanked me by the hair on the top of my head to force me to look at him. “Don’t close your eyes, Charlotte. Look at me while I fuck you.”
His hands clenched tightly at my esophagus, squeezing it until I did look at his crazed, wild eyes.
I didn’t want to watch his face over mine—the sweat dripping from his brow, the bared teeth and tensed muscles as he moved inside me. So, I just pictured my Jase and how he always looked at me like I was his treasure when we were together. The beautiful image of his face was the only thing I saw as this man,this sick, fucking, nasty, monster of a man, ravaged and ruined me. And here, I thought stupidly that nothing could ever erase the worst event that ever happened to me. Here, I thought whenever I closed my eyes, I would always relive the moment my best friend was beaten to death less than ten feet away from me, and I could do nothing to help him. Finally, I found something else to repeatedly see on the back of my eyelids—the laser blue eyes of the disgusting man as he took everything from me.
Dipping his hand between our bodies, he rubbed against me until that low tension built deep inside, and no matter how hard I fought it, how hard I fought him, my body still ended up defying me. That pressure built and built, until I couldn’t control the madness, and my body convulsed hard and pitifully around him. I wished I could bury my face and my shame, but I couldn’t. He was still grunting and pumping relentlessly against me. His heavy body jerked violently, and with one last, loud grunt, he exploded painfully inside me, spilling what felt like fire deep within me. I never felt that before, none of it. Jase and I were always so careful, using condoms and now…now I was violated, defiled, and utterly destroyed. I turned my head and vomited against the blue comforter beneath me. The horrid smell of it made me heave more, and I spit remnants of my breakfast across the top of the dark blue blanket.
“Well, I’m unimpressed, honestly. That was a less than stellar performance from you. I don’t understand what my son saw in you. Maybe because you were so easy?” he stated, zipping up his pants, tucking his shirt inside them, and straightening his suit jacket.
Quickly, he untied my leg from the bedpost and pulled my tied hands off their prison against the frame of the bed. “Get up,” he demanded.
I don’t know why, but I did what he said. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything worse to me at that point, so I just followed his directions, hoping the next thing he would do was kill me. I wanted to die just from the feel of his semen running warmly down the inside of my legs.
Unlocking and opening the door, he shoved my body through the doorway into the hallway, pushing me hard into the bathroom. I stumbled, hitting my shoulder against the edge of the sink and falling hard against the hard, ceramic bathtub. He stood over me and turned the faucet on in the tub, touching the water with his hands to check the temperature. I silently cried and watched the steam rise up off the tiles. Yanking me up by my hair, he forced me into the tub. The water was scalding, but the burn of him rubbing the soap over my skin and deep inside me hurt so much worse. To this day, I can sometimes still feel the phantom sting and fire of that awful white bar of soap. That shit never leaves you, andthe smell of it…the smell of that soap makes me want to peel my own damn skin off.
